"It's 1973. It's dinner time. I'm'aving 'oops .."

I don't watch much TV when at home, in fact when Mia and the girls have their annual trip to the in-laws for a week in the summer (I take them down, then come back to London to work) and I'm home alone - the TV is rarely, if ever, switched on. I do watch a lot of programs/films on my PSP on the train journey to and from work though.

I've worked my way through all 5 seasons of 'House MD', and did find myself doing a differential diagnosis when my Dad was in hospital one day. I've also watched all 5 seasons of 'The Wire', plus seasons of 'Damages', 'Flight of the Conchords', and 'The Unit'. Recently though I've been re-watching 'Life on Mars' - I love the concept of the show, with the main character waking up in 1973. I like looking at old photos of places I've lived in and seeing how much they've changed in the intervening years, and would jump at the chance to be able to go back and see these places as they were (On the proviso I could get back again).

I got two books out of the library last week about Manningtree, and found the picture below in one of them:
This is a photo taken at the top of Station Road in 1977. I walk down this road at least 10 times a week, and from the photo recognise the telegraph pole on the right (It's straight now), and the small lay-by just in front of the flat-bed Ford Transit.

This is the road now:

The fields to the right of the 1977 photo now have mine and a couple of hundred other houses on them, gone are the days when my mate Nikki used to run her school cross country over what is now my back garden.
The road has gone from being straight down Cox's Hill and turn left for the station, or right for Manningtree, to having a roundabout (Flowers provided by 'Hearts Delight' ..) which is frequently snarled up when the level crossing is in use. The small sign pointing to the station has been replaced with the standard Network Rail station sign, and the bushes on the corner have overgrown to the extent that you can't see past them - and when the students gather there to catch a bus you end up in the road ...

The town has changed so much over the past 30 years, and I wonder how it will change in the next 30 - though of course we'll all be living on the moon or something by then ...

I'd love to be able to walk down Manningtree High Street, circa 1977 (Though while I'm there I may nip across to Ipswich and catch 'Star Wars' before George Lucas started playing with it and ruined it) and across the field where my house now is and try and figure out where my garage should be ...

And perhaps I'd get the train to Ilford, walk through Valentines Park to Auckland Road, and see if I can spot this 4 year old ...

Should I tell him to avoid dating certain young ladies in the early 90's, and that shortly after my 7th birthday I'm going to faint in the middle of an Salvation Army meeting? Or would the universe explode due to me messing with the space-time continuum? We'll never know ... (Unless of course at the age of 4 I was visited, and I just ignored the strange man who came to see me - which is also possible unless he had Star Wars figures.).

I would however tell him to lump on Ipswich winning the 1978 FA Cup, and Coventry and Wimbledon doing likewise in 1987 and 1988 .. It would pay for that 'Fila' tracksuit I always wanted but could never afford ...